A good word about Marina Diamandis
November 10th 2010 03:22
George Orwell’s Third Rule for Effective Writing:
If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
In an interview published in Australia’s mX newspaper today, British singer and song-writer Marina Diamandis talks about her passion for words.
Those who compose the words to songs work under the same constraints as writers of poetry. This is language at its most spare, and superfluous words – imposters inserted, perhaps, purely to help with metre or rhyme – stand out like a pimple on a nose.
“When I'm writing lyrics,” says the 25-year-old Diamandis, “I don't use any surplus words. I want every single word, if possible, to be great, even if that sounds a bit weird.”
If Diamandis understands Orwell’s Third Rule, she understands that there is nothing weird about it. What’s usually weird is language written or spoken without regard to the rule.
Of course, Diamandis does understand – you don’t have a hit debut album, as she did, if your songs are sloppy with unwanted words. Perhaps, in the generosity of youth, Diamandis is empathising with those who don’t understand the need to get rid of unnecessary words. We can’t all be writers and poets.
“A three-minute song should be like a huge idea filtered down into a very consumable story,'' Marina Diamandis continued. Bravo.
Orwell would approve, as would a fellow-poet, Ezra Pound. He once put it this way: “Great literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree.”
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